California-based Aemetis is replacing 100 percent diesel with 100 percent biodiesel in India. This news release from the company says the pure biodiesel reduces emissions by 80 percent in the warm climate areas of India.
Traditionally, in Europe and in the United States, biodiesel is blended in the range of 5% to 20% with petroleum diesel due to colder temperature conditions. With southern/western India’s tropical climate, Aemetis led the introduction of 100% distilled biodiesel in truck, bus, taxi and stationary generator sectors as a 100% replacement of petroleum diesel.
The 99.8% pure distilled biodiesel produced by Aemetis has superior attributes such as a high cetane number (66-68) compared to the regular biodiesel cetane number of about 51 along with excellent lubricating properties to reduce engine wear.
Aemetis now has multiple sales channels in India, directly selling to bulk businesses and selling through Government-owned oil marketing companies (OMC’s). Aemetis is currently selling biodiesel to a large OMC in addition to a number of major transportation and logistics businesses.
“We are excited to lead the replacement of 100% petroleum diesel with 100% distilled biodiesel in India where 13 Indian cities rank among the 20 most polluted cities in the world,” said Eric McAfee, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Aemetis.
“We have succeeded in working with major bulk fuel customers to convert their fleets to 100% distilled biodiesel to achieve significant cost benefits as well as help improve the environment,” said Sanjeev Gupta, Managing Director of Aemetis’ India biofuels subsidiary, Universal Biofuels, based in Hyderabad.
In India, diesel-based fuels are king, as diesel makes up 25 billion gallons per year, significantly larger than the current India gasoline market of 5 billion gallons per year. Biodiesel production in India is only about 250 million gallons. Aemetis owns and operates a biodiesel production facility with a capacity of approximately 50 million gallons per year in India.